


the sky is yours

by chailover



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-23
Updated: 2014-08-05
Packaged: 2018-02-05 21:33:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1833043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chailover/pseuds/chailover
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For: <a href="http://avengerkink.livejournal.com/">avengerkink</a></p>
<p>Prompt: Five times someone referred to Bucky as "Steve's boy" and one time Bucky called Steve "my boy" </p>
<p>Originally prompted <a href="http://avengerkink.livejournal.com/19023.html?thread=44268623#t44268623">here</a>.<br/></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Steve and Bucky actually never say the words, but pretty much everyone else does...also experimenting with posting to AO3 at the same time as everywhere else, so forgive the typos/minor edits as they come up.
> 
> 8.3.14 edit: the section breaks were really bugging me, so...fixing. Also probably added some missing italics.

**

_One_

 

Steve had planned to wait outside the confirmation meeting, but was shanghaied by Howard for materials testing almost the minute he was kicked out. Colonel Phillips had given in with bad grace on Steve's choices for the members of his team, but apparently the powers that be required an official approval process, one that "doesn't require your input or presence, now go bother someone else!" according to Phillips.

Not that Steve would've had any issues with telling the faceless brass where to shove it if needed, but he'd rather get the team he wanted without being written up or kicked out. There was a certain level of anxiety involved with waiting for approval of his choices, even if he knew with bone-deep certainty that he made the right ones. Add on top of that the fact that everyone he picked was called into the meeting - well, he just finished talking them into joining the team, he didn't want the brass to give them cold feet now.

(He wouldn't admit that he was most worried about Bucky - yes, his best friend had promised to follow him back into the fire, but even without saying anything, he knew that Bucky had been through so many terrible, awful things. He had done his time, but Steve hadn't been brave enough to offer him an out. Buck would be an idiot to not take the chance to go home, if they gave him one.)

Finally, the door opened and various officers spilled out into the hall. He frowned when he didn't recognize anyone but Peggy and Colonel Phillips.

Phillips glared at him when he saluted, but stopped by the door to answer questions from another officer. Peggy also paused, folder held at the ready and giving Steve a steady look, which made him brave enough to ask: "Agent Carter, have you seen Buck - I mean, Sergeant Barnes?"

"We let your boy out half an hour ago, he was the last of your lot," Phillips growled, making Steve jump. "And good riddance," he waved at Peggy, who handed Steve the folder. "My condolences, Captain, he - no, _they_ are your problem now."

Steve fumbled the folder but managed to not spill its contents all over the floor, but any thought to protest the 'your boy' part fled when he realized what Phillips was implying. "Sir, you mean..."

"You got your team of crazies, and all of you are perfect for each other." Phillips left, muttering more deprecations under his breath, as Steve tried his best not to beam.

Peggy gave him an indulgent and amused look - not quite a smile, but almost. "I believe Sergeant Barnes took Colonel Phillips' recommendation to work on his accuracy, Captain. He and the rest of Command might be a little sore from the sergeant's rather pointed words."

Steve hid a smile as he offered her his arm, "Dare I ask?"

She tilted her head slightly. "There might've been something about keeping better control of chorus girls," she allowed, taking his arm. "You might find him at the practice range, shall we walk?"

 

**

_Two_

 

Steve didn't know what he was expecting when he entered Tony's workshop, but the footage of the Helicarrier Insight C crashing into the Treskelion projected onto the workshop wall, length-wise, wasn't it.

"Hey, Capsicle," Tony said absentmindedly from his seat, "Jarvis, was that engine four going out over there? Rewind to 5:43...ah, there." The image paused and Tony waved, "Save and close, log it as 'pretty sure reason for catastrophic failure is due to being exploded by Insight A and B', but you know it's not science unless you write it down," and with a snap of his fingers, the image disappeared and all the lights came back up, making Steve blink with the afterimage.

The billionaire genius spun around on his chair and spread his arms, hooking a work stool and kicking it in Steve's general direction. He caught it before it rolled into his legs. "Sit down, what brings you to my lovely tower?"

Steve sat and considered what to say. The files that Natasha had dumped into the public domain didn't contain much information about Bucky or the Winter Soldier project - if they had, he wouldn't have needed her to pull the hardcopy files for him. But Tony Stark was infuriatingly good at too many things to count, one of which is knowing things other people don't and having ways of finding out that aren't available to most guys off the street. So Tony most likely already saw the footage on the causeway and in the Helicarriers and possibly knew the Winter Soldier's real identity.

He took a deep breath and told himself to just do it. So what if Bucky was the very visible and very terrifying face of the enemy in the shitstorm that led to the helicarrier crashes? So what if Tony knew who he really was, or that there might be a chance that Hydra, and maybe even the Winter Soldier himself, was responsible for the death of Tony's parents? There was no way he and Sam could track Bucky by themselves, or even with Natasha and maybe Fury - Steve needed help and he knew it. The worst Tony can say was no.

"I need a favor," he finally said.

Tony usually was a whirlwind of words and gestures, flitting from place to place like a peculiar red-and-gold hummingbird, so it was almost jolting to feel the full brunt of his attention. "Would this happen to have anything to do with your boy Barnes," he mused, "the assassin formerly known as the Winter Soldier?"

Strangely enough, it wasn't the confirmation that Tony knew that hit him like a punch, but the other man's choice of words. Once again he had to bite down the words, 'he's not my boy'. "What happened wasn't his fault, he didn't know what he was doing." Steve said, hating how his voice sounded.

Tony snorted, amused. "Wilson and Romanov were right, you really are like a kicked puppy." He rolled back to the bench and tapped something on his screens. "I should hope he knew what he was doing there at the end. Pretty sure that metal arm isn't conducive to swimming, especially considering he was hauling you around."

"...what?"

"Look, I'm not gonna repeat this, so listen carefully," and there it was again, the full force of a serious Tony Stark, "You don't go swimming with a metal arm, a broken arm, and try to drag Captain America's ass back to shore if you're just a mindless weapon." He grimaced like he tasted something bad, "I might know something about mindlessness and coercion...so my point is, the person he is now, the person he's trying to be, deserves a chance. I would've helped you just for that, even if he didn't save your butt, even if he wasn't your BFF from five bajillion eons ago."

Steve gaped. Tony made a face and waved at the air.

"Jarvis, wipe the security footage for the workshop for today, please. I can't believe I spewed all that. Ugh, emotions." He pointed at Steve. "And you, close your mouth or you're gonna catch a bug. Now, what can I do for you?"

 

**

_three_

 

Three continents and ten burned down Hydra bases later, Natasha found him and Sam in a cheap hostel outside of Taipei. Sam was the one that answered the door, and Steve couldn't quite pick out the murmured words between the two before Sam called out, "Natasha's here. I'm going to pick up some dinner and drinks for us, be right back."

A few seconds passed before the footsteps faded, and he heard the door close and the lock click. Steve came out of the bathroom to see Natasha sitting on one of the beds - Sam's - tapping at her phone. Her hair was cut short and pixie-like, dyed a darker red than when he had first met her, and when she looked up, her expression didn't seem as inscrutable as usual.

Natasha called or texted them occasionally, but never truly joined them on their quest. Instead, she sent tidbits of information as she unearthed them, 'missing' files, names of potential informants. Steve knew that the events of DC upended more than his own world, and hadn't begrudged the time she needed to find herself. So it was a little worrying to see her suddenly after months of short, perfunctory texts.

"You okay?" Steve found himself asking, a bizarre echo from months ago, when they were hiding out at Sam's place following Zola's revelation about SHIELD and Hydra. Her wry smile told him she realized it too.

"Remember what I asked you that day?"

He sat down across from her on his own bed, elbows on knees, eyes meeting hers squarely. "You've asked me a lot of hard questions ever since we've met, so you'll have to be more specific."

"If it was down to me to save your life," she said quietly, her face so young but her eyes so ancient. "would you trust me to do it?"

He didn't even have to think about it before he nodded. "Yes. Then and now."

"What about his?"

Steve stilled, there could only be one 'he' that Natasha was referring to. "...what do you mean?"

Natasha set her phone on the bed and mirrored his pose. "If it was down to me to save his life," she repeated, quiet and steady, "would you trust me to do it?"

"Do...do you know where he is?" He sounded desperate, shaken. Months since DC, since waking up in the hospital with nothing more than the faint memory of a gleaming, silver hand reaching for him in the murky water, multiple gunshot wounds and blunt trauma. Months of Tony working his magic, chasing after hints of Bucky in surveillance video, old covers, hints in the news and social media. Bucky was close enough to touch there on the causeway, on the helicarrier, even if those touches were physical blows. "Natasha, please-"

"Steve, do you trust me?" Her hands were small against his, fingers slender, but so surprisingly strong. She held his eyes like it was nothing hard, when sometimes even Sam had to look away.

"With my life, yes." He forced out. But he knew that's not what she meant.

She smiled like he had answered the question she had asked after all. "Then let me save your boy." she murmured, fingers still like iron around his, holding him steady. "Let me save him for you."

 

**

_Four_

 

There’s a soft blue glow from the flatscreen TV, thankfully not the cool aqua of the arc reactor or the Tesseract. Bucky laid lengthwise on the couch, head propped against the armrest, his metal arm and left leg dangling off the side. Steve was on top of him like a blanket, half on his side, half on his stomach, tucked on top of Bucky and in the small space left between him and the back of the sofa.

He was sleeping, they were both sleeping until suddenly Steve was not, and it was jolting how not jolting it was. Usually abrupt awakenings were from nightmares, but this time he could still feel Bucky's even breathing under his cheek, his flesh arm warm around his shoulders. If he had a nightmare, there was no way Bucky would still be sleeping.

It took a second, but he realized that this time it was just Tony, standing by the entryway to the living area with a coffee mug in hand and a slight smile on his face. He looked like he just came up from the labs, hair standing on end and bare arms covered in grease. Steve squinted at him in the semi-darkness, managing a fuzzy, "...wha?"

"That looks pretty comfy," Tony whispered, "but you and your boy might want to relocate to an actual bed. I hear sofas are hard on the back, especially for grandpas like you."

The whispering was pretty useless, because Steve could feel that Bucky was awake now by the suddenly shallower breathing and tension in the body below his. He raised his head to glare a bit distractedly at Tony, because it was hard for either of them to sleep peacefully through the night. "Go 'way."

Tony held up his hands preemptively, backing away but still talking in that ridiculous stage whisper. "Going. Though you two are adorable and I'm totally going to ask Jarvis for pictures!"

Bucky grumbled, "not adorable," as Tony made his escape and Steve gave up on the sofa. It wouldn't hurt either of their backs, but while he was sure Jarvis wouldn't photograph them without consent, he was less sure about Bucky's potential reaction if Jarvis did.

"That's your takeaway?" Steve asked wryly as he pushed himself to his feet and held out a hand. He'd consider it progress when Bucky took it, except that apparently living in each others' pockets pre-fall meant that Bucky's body remembered Steve, even if sometimes Bucky himself didn't. When they shed the mantles of Captain America and the Winter Soldier, Steve and Bucky slotted together like two puzzle pieces meant to fit. His heart ached in a good way, when Bucky took his hand without hesitation and allowed Steve to pull him to his feet.

"C'mon, let's go."

 

**

_Five_

 

The trip from California to New York was a blur, passing in a strangely timeless instant with the dim lights and quiet hum of engines in the quinjet. His phone pinged about halfway into the hour's flight, and without looking he knew it would be the first draft of the post-mission report, forwarded to him by Natasha. He knew he should open it up and read it, brace himself for what he'll find when they land, but his hands remained in white-knuckled fists on top of his knees.

Time resumed, then sped up as the jet touched down on the heli-pad on top of military hospital the new SHIELD co-opted. He was out and jogging for the rooftop entrance before the engines fully quieted, and it opened to admit him. Strangely enough, it was Thor that greeted him. The blond demi-god/alien giving him a smile and nod, but moved out of his way and falling into step without pause so they could head down immediately instead of wasting time.

"The Midgardian healers wish to speak to you about your shieldbrother's condition," Thor said as they entered the elevator. "The team would be glad for your arrival, for news has been scarce."

There were laws for these sort of things now, Steve knew. As Bucky was only technically a consultant to the new SHIELD and not part of the Avengers (at least on paper), Steve was officially Bucky's next of kin and medical proxy and the only one that hospitals and doctors felt comfortable with when it came to release of information. "We really need to get that updated," Steve said with a sigh, rounding the corner with Thor and finding himself facing a handful of members from STRIKE team 1, waiting in the hallway.

"Sir," One of them stood up and saluted him. He recognized her as the leader of the special ops team. Ramirez...he couldn't remember her first name. The rest of them stayed seated, looking beat to hell and exhausted, though a few straightened and tried to stand. Steve waved them down, including Ramirez.

"Any news...?"

Ramirez smiled, a little strained at the edges. "The surgery light just went off a few minutes ago, and you're here, sir. Hopefully this means someone will finally tell us something."

As if summoned by her words, the double-doors to the OR opened and a surgeon, still in scrubs, came out, trailing assistants. Steve was somewhat relieved to see that she didn't seem to be splattered in blood or otherwise panicked. When the mask over the mouth came off, he could see that the older woman was smiling.

"Captain Rogers? I am Dr. Anne Cowles." She pulled off the surgical gloves and held out a hand, shaking with a firm grip when he took it. "Your boy is tough, sir. Everything went much more smoothly than we expected, and I'll be updating his condition post-op to serious but stable shortly. He'll be alright."

The sudden relief was like release from a concrete block pressing on his chest. "Thank god. Thank you. Can I see him?"

One of the assistants hand a tablet over to the doctor, who swiped and tapped her way to a screen with a schedule on it. "Agent Barnes will be moved to the recovery unit after we're sure there're no complications from the surgery. So not right away, but maybe in a few hours." She smiled reassuringly, and then turned it on the rest of the STRIKE team and Thor. "All of you look like you can use some food and sleep, this might be a good time to get it."

Steve asked for the room they'll be moving Bucky to without actually intending to get the recommended sleep. Thor gripped his shoulder and offered to stay for the vigil with Steve, but when it was declined, declared his intentions to return to Avengers Tower to give everyone else the news. Ramirez asked for a volunteer to keep watch here and proceeded to order the rest of the team home.

She turned to Steve and gestured toward the elevator with her chin - they were going to move Bucky to the 22nd floor once he's out of observation. "Sir, I can give you a debrief before I go check on the other members of the team, if you'd like."

It would help pass some of the time from now until he could see that Bucky would be okay, with his own eyes. Steve smiled gratefully and nodded.

Ramirez - whose first name was Pamela, gave him an informal debriefing over a small spread of hospital food. By the time they parted ways at the hospital entrance - her to check up on the rest of the team before going home herself, and he back to Bucky, he knew most of the mission details and objectives and what went wrong.

Even knowing all that, it was still a blow to see Bucky in the hospital bed, hooked up to what seemed like every machine possible under the sun. Steve hoped that the doctor's optimistic outlook was right - they healed much faster than normal due to their enhancements, and the more tubes and IVs and monitors they can remove before Bucky wakes up and freaks out, the better.

His oldest and best friend looked small and battered, his metal prosthetic terminating in a ragged jumble of deformed metal plates and a few snipped cables. The debriefing had prepared him somewhat - he knew that the team had found that the base had more than just information, it had a live weapons arsenal that had to be destroyed. The team had deployed the base's own self-destruct sequence to do it, and had been caught on the ex-filtration by the security forces.

But it was one thing to be told that Bucky had punched his arm into the locking mechanism of the blast doors to stop them from closing on the strike team, allowing them a chance to get out while getting himself caught between the pursuing security of the base and the explosion from the self destruct, and another to see the mangled results of it in front of his eyes. Steve took a deep breath and told himself that he wasn't going to chew Bucky out for giving him a heart attack when he woke up - because that was Bucky Barnes all over: saving people, saving Steve, over and over again.

 

**

**+1**

 

Being on the comms with the Avengers during a mission wasn't that different from being on the comms with a STRIKE team on ops. Granted, Stark seemed physically incapable of _not_ talking, with Romanov and Barton and occasionally even Jarvis egging him on via dry one-liners and Thor loved to randomly declare things. But other than that, Steve barked orders and the team gave updates, and it was pretty familiar.

Just now, the demi-god had shouted, "For Asgard and Midgard, begone, you foul miscreant!" at something Bucky couldn't see. There was a human-sounding yelp at the end though, so he suspected it wasn't one of the reptilian bird-aliens but one of their earthbound colluders instead.

"I think the head honcho just went into the Citi building over there - " Barton said, and somewhere over their heads, a cluster of bird-things went boom. "Cap, do you need - annnnd there he goes." Steve leapt off the roof he was on and smashed, shield-first, into one of the top-level windows of the Citi building. "What was it you're always yelling at me about, Cap? Don't jump off buildings!"

Bucky lined up a shot carefully and double-tapped one of the flying bird-creatures that dove after Steve. "You jump offa more buildings than he does, Barton," he murmured, because when it came to leaping off things without a safety net, Barton was still pretty far ahead of Steve.

"Shut up, Barnes, I had a grappling hook, at least." An arrow screamed by and embedded itself into another bird's brain pan. Inside, they could see Steve wade his way through a sea of human henchmen toward the yahoo with the summoning amulet. A yahoo that was built even bigger than Steve, like a brick shithouse on steroids. Clint whistled admiringly as Steve clocked him upside the head with the shield. "Your boy's a crazy son of a bitch."

"Don't talk about Steve's ma that way," Bucky muttered absently, one foot already on the ledge. The idiot had jumped in without backup again, and he was going to get overrun by the henchmen in a moment.

At the same moment, Steve said, "Don't talk about my ma that way." A grunt, then, "Everything's under control."

Bucky stood on the ledge and sighed. His boy really was an idiot. "Stark, I need a lift," he called, then stepped into freefall.

 

**End**


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Five times someone referred to Steve as "Bucky's boy" and one time someone calls Bucky "Steve's boy".

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...so, funny story. I always get sad when I see a really good fic that I've read before show up in the list again because I think there's a new chapter, but usually it's because of edits. So I had posted the fill pretty quickly without waiting the usual sanity-check grace period (for me, anyway), and didn't want to edit without having something more to contribute. ...so, I wrote the 5+1, but this time for Bucky.
> 
> It's scrambled because Bucky's scrambled. *shrug*
> 
> edit: 8/5 - minor fixes. ugh.

**  
 _Five_

There was a woman waiting for him in his hotel room. He didn’t know that he knew her until she looked up at the gun he was pointing at her face, something about those green eyes and the unimpressed look causing a twinge of recognition.

“As cliche as it sounds, I’m just here to talk,” she said. “You can put the gun away.”

He knew she was there before he had entered the room. If he wanted to avoid her, he could’ve turned and left without opening the door, if he wanted to kill her, he could’ve shot through the door.

If she wanted to kill him, she had ample opportunity to rig the room, or set up an ambush. He had an unsettled feeling that she knew all that, and knew that he would be opening the door anyway.

There were plenty of chances to have killed each other, and yet no one was dead. He supposed that was good enough for a context clue. “What do you want?” he asked, lowering the gun. His voice was raspy and barely there - he hadn’t talked in what seemed like an eternity, because there had been no need, and water was usually just an afterthought after his body screamed at him.

“Your boy’s looking for you,” she shrugged ever so slightly, the picture of understated nonchalance.

He didn’t have the words for how wrong that was - he was neither James Buchanan Barnes nor the Winter Soldier, he was the wreckage left from the destruction of both. He was nothing, and nothings can’t own anything. He could only give that the answer it deserved: “he’s not my boy.”

She laughed at him, lighter than he expected, without a hint of mocking. He glared at her as she shook her head and composed herself.

“When we were in the transport, after the fight on the causeway,” she said, apropos of nothing, young-old eyes meeting his, “you know what Steve said to us?”

He shook his head, because if memories of the causeway and the man on the bridge naming him was already like a badly faded, barely remembered nightmare, then there was no way he’d know what Steve would’ve said in a place he couldn’t hear, or even know about.

“He said, ‘even when I had nothing, I had Bucky’.”

“I’m not him.” he said. It felt like his ears were ringing, as if a gun had gone off by the side of his head, or if he had forgotten to eat for too long.

“Maybe, maybe not,” the red-haired woman said with mild ambivalence, getting up and breezing past him for the door. “But no one stays the same, that’s the whole point of living.”

He let her pass, gun lowered and barely remembering to half-turn, to keep her in his sights. She paused by the door, one hand on the frame, and met his eyes levelly. “And if you ask him...he'll say he _is_ yours, more than anyone or anything in the world.”

 

**

_One_

 

Something small and fast hit the back of his legs, and Bucky stumbled, almost dropping his small bag of groceries. “What the - !”

When he twisted around to look, the mop of black hair on the tiny body was familiar. The little boy was gulping for air, so out of breath he couldn’t talk, but he had small fistfuls of Bucky’s shirt. It was Billy, the youngest son of the couple that lived down the hall.

Before Bucky could ask what the matter was, Billy looked up and panted out, “Your boy...alley behind the tailor’s…Johnny was hasslin’ Maryanne ‘n Steve saw - he’ll kill him!”

Everybody knew by now - get Mrs. Rogers if Steve was having an asthma attack or feeling faint, no matter how loudly he protested that he was fine, and get Bucky if Steve’s fighting yet another bully on behalf of strays/girls/anyone else. Johnny was a few years older than him and Steve and already a well known bully on their block. Maryanne wouldn’t be the first girl he harassed, and it was probably actually a miracle that Steve hadn't butted heads with Johnny until now.

It certainly didn't feel very miraculous and Bucky was distinctly ungrateful. “Hell,” he swore, shoving the groceries into Billy’s arms, heart already racing with adrenaline. Johnny was big, the biggest of his class, and Steve never, ever stayed down. “By the Richardson’s, you say?”

“Yes, hurry!”

**

_Three_

 

It was an old argument, so old that he could have it and clean his guns at the same time.

“So, Jimmy boy-”

He shot Dugan a glare and glanced pointedly around the tent, where the rest of the Commandos - sans Steve - were loitering. Morita and Jones were tinkering with a Frankenstein of a radio, Falsworth and Dernier with their heads together, conversing in French - rapid and smooth on Dernier’s part and slower but almost accent-less on Falsworth’s.

“You must either be deaf or senile,” Bucky grumbled as he picked up one of the cleaning rods and stabbed it toward Morita, “That’s Jim,” and then, to Falsworth, “That’s Monty, and for the hundredth time, I’m _Bucky_. We have three James’ just in this group, and like I’ve said, not even my ma called me ‘Jimmy’.”

Dugan gave him a shit eating grin. “Your boy said otherwise.”

Bucky rolled his eyes. Steve was such a traitor. “Okay, my ma hasn’t called me that since I was like, five.” A thought occurred to him, and he smiled evilly. “Dum-dum’s a pretty accurate nickname, but maybe we should call you Timmy instead.” There was a chorus of snickers and laughter. Bucky was pretty sure they were all imagining Dugan with his age in the single digits, even though the boy in his mental picture still had his inexplicable handlebar mustache and bowler hat. Dugan looked suitably horrified. “Whaddya say, boys?

“Timmy!” they hollered.

Dugan gracefully conceded defeat with a scowl, and they stick to ‘Bucky’ and ‘Dum-dum’ from then on.

 

**  
 _Two_

 

Steve was already outside, having pushed by Bucky with his head down in an useless attempt to hide the fact that his eyes were red and wet. Bucky could see him wipe angrily at his face, one of the white-garbed nurses walking over to him and speaking in quiet, soothing tones as his best friend wept.

He turned back to the bed - he will have time with Steve later, to pick him up and set him back on his feet - but he could feel his own eyes burn as he looked, really looked, and numbly acknowledged that Sarah Rogers was not long for this earth.

She was reclining on a stack of pillows, one thin, bony hand clutching a handkerchief that he knew would be spotted with red, if they ever spread it out from the wad it was in. Her expression was the same as it had always been: a mix of exhaustion and sadness, worn but smoothed with a smile.

He sat down by her bed and took the hand she offered in his own. He wanted to tell her she would be okay; to joke and make her laugh because that was what he tried to do when Steve was the one in the sickbed, but he wasn’t sure at that precise moment, after seeing her and seeing Steve, that he wouldn’t break down crying himself. She didn’t need that from him.

Sarah smiled as if she could read his mind, but her serenity frayed ever so slightly at the edges. “Bucky,” she said, “Bucky, I know this is the end for me - “

“Don’t say that, Mrs. Rogers!” Bucky protested, his voice cracking.

She shook her head. “It’s the end, dear, and I don’t have any worries or regrets, except…” Her thin little hand clenched, so strongly that it surprised him.

“Steve.”

“Steve,” she nodded, eyes bright with unshed tears. How strong she and Steve had both been, between the bouts of Steve’s different illnesses and her own lingering, ultimately deadly one. She probably had kept up the brave face with Steve even until the very end, so that his last memory would be of her smiling. But now Steve was gone and she was at the last of her strength. The bravery failed at the same time as her attempt to not cry. “He’ll be alone, with no one - ”

“That’s not true,” Bucky whispered. Then, more loudly, “That’s not true, Mrs. Rogers. I’m not - he’ll miss you so, so much, but I’ll be there, he won’t be alone.”

“Promise me,” she sobbed, both hands clutching at his now. “Promise me, you’ll take care of our boy when I’m gone. Promise.”

He squeezed her hands as tightly as he dared. "Of course, of course, Mrs. Rogers. I promise, I'll take care of him for you."

 

**  
 _Four_

 

The buzz of conversation was white noise to him as he floated, mind blank.

"...too long, I think. Hopefully the wipe will hold for the mission..."

"...someone really fried the arm..."

There were sounds around him: technicians moving around, the creak of leather and Kevlar from the guards, the humming of the machinery. He was in the chair, but even if he could muster up the energy to be afraid, he wasn't. There wasn't anything else that can happen at this point, some part of him knew, there wouldn't be a point to wiping him twice.

Someone made a tsk noise close to him and he opened his eyes. The lab technician was bent over him, blocking the sight of the Chair's head-clamps. He relinquished the mouth guard when the tech gestured for it, and submitted to the cursory exam to make sure he didn't damage any teeth.

The other technician was griping steadily as he worked on the arm. "...really did a number on the wiring, it'll take at least another few hours to fix." There was a tap on the forearm that made him look. "What the hell happened here?"

The tech checking his non-metal parts snorted. "Why are you asking him after a wipe, idiot? He's not gonna know."

"Man, we're going to have to do so much overtime," the first tech sighed, fiddling with some warped plates. "Your boy's caused a lot of trouble," he grumbled. "I had a date tonight!"

He blinked.

"Quit your whining," the other technician ordered. "We've got work to do."

 

**

**+1**

 

The strangest part of moving to the Tower was definitely the weekly Avengers’ movie night, which was a catchy but misleading name: it was usually not weekly, never just for the Avengers (actually, rarely with all the Avengers), and sometimes they don’t watch movies.

“So it’s actually ‘whenever who’s here wants to watch a movie or whatever show’ night.” Tony explained to Steve with a shrug, “We’re not picky.”

And they weren’t. Movie nights ended up being great for team bonding, and later, as an attempt for slowly introducing Bucky to his team in small, digestible parts. The attempt mostly failed because there was nothing slow, small or easily digestible about the Avengers and their personalities, either individually or in aggregate. 

Each introduction was a huge potential for disaster, but Bucky had always been more adaptable and resilient than anyone had bothered to notice beneath the facade of either the cocky Sergeant Barnes from the 1940s or the apathetic Winter Soldier of the more recent past. It probably helped that Bucky read people just as well as Natasha, could project harmlessness like Bruce, and had been charming people out of things since he was in short pants.

Speaking of charming people out of things. “Don’t even think about it,” he told Bucky, who was making eyes at his raisinettes. Besides Bucky and himself, tonight’s movie night attendees included the self-proclaimed Science Bros and Clint: and out of the three, Tony and Clint were horrible candy thieves despite declaring their eternal love and devotion to popcorn. He supposed that it was a better thing to worry about than, say, doombots in Central Park.

“Aw, c’mon, Stevie,” Bucky wheedled. “You got a whole box!”

“Which will disappear in its entirety into your bottomless pit of a stomach,” Steve ignored the hypocrisy of that statement and met Bucky’s puppy eyes with his own disapproving glare. “Still a no.”

Bucky gave him a sad look (entirely faked, Steve could tell) and went off to try his luck with Tony and Bruce. That was probably a good thing, because those two needed to be talked out of another Star Wars marathon.

“No Star Wars marathons!” Clint hollered as he plopped himself down at the other end of the sectional, setting down a bowl of popcorn larger than his head and another bowl filled with chips. Tony flipped him off, not even pausing for breath as he and Bucky continued their debate, which involved a lot of arm-waving and stabbing fingers at the selection on the giant screen. The archer whistled, sitting back and crossing his feet. “Your boy’s a menace, Cap.”

“What?” Steve looked up from where he was trying to neatly plate some chips with the dip for himself. “Why?”

“We’re watching something called ‘Space Balls’,” Bucky announced before Clint could answer, coming back to sit next to Steve and looking satisfied. Clint whooped and held up a fist to bump with Bucky’s metal one.

“Space Balls is a Star Wars parody,” Tony sniffed, settling himself on the other sofa with great dignity. Beside him, Bruce was looking long-suffering. “So the joke’s on you.”

“I don’t care as long as I don’t need to sit through another hour-long discussion on the validity and quality of the new prequels versus the originals and what order they need to be seen in,” Steve groaned. “Can we get started, please?”

Bucky jumped a little when Clint nudged him, and Steve looked just in time to see Bucky smugly show Clint the bag of mini Reeses peanut butter cups that had been in Tony’s possession, at last check. Tony, like Steve, had refused to share.

“A menace,” Clint mouthed as Jarvis dimmed the lights. Steve felt Bucky bump his shoulder, and looked down to see that his raisinettes had been swapped out for the Reese’s, which were his favorites anyway.

 

Tony doesn’t realize his candy was missing until twenty minutes into the movie, but by then the evidence was already well on the way to being fully digested.

**end**


End file.
